All week news kept on dribbling out about the"second strike" on the Venezuelan suspected drug boat in the Caribbean, a strike which intentionally killed two defenseless survivors. And each day it just got worse and worse for Trump and his idiot Defense Secretary. Congressional leaders were finally shown the video on Thursday, and all six Democrats came out of the showing and gave statements about how deeply disturbed they were. Significantly, only one of the six Republicans gave a statement. This was Senator Tom Cotton, who disgraced himself with some absurd pronouncements about how the two men were trying to turn the boat back over and continue their voyage, and how one guy took off his shirt and seemed to be sunbathing. But the kicker came on Friday, when it came out that the boat wasn't even going to the United States! Rather, it was headed to the South American country of Suriname, from where the cargo would be on its way to Europe.
The laws of war expressly prohibit attacking defenseless people. To the contrary, there is a duty to rescue them and render aid. And the whole idea that we are in a "war" with drug runners is bogus. Only Congress can declare war, and it has not done so. This whole metaphorical use of the word "war" has led us to an extreme position of "anything goes". In the 60s we had the "war on poverty", in the 80s we had the "war on drugs", and in later decades we had the "war on terrorism". It is high time to discard this careless use of the word "war".
It is only a matter of time before we will all see the video, and the Trump/Hegseth policy of blowing up Venezuelan boats will be revealed for the inhumane disaster it is. Hegseth's blaming the "fog of war" for the cold-blooded killing of two survivors will be revealed for the lie that it is. In fact, what the video will show is that for 41 minutes the two survivors desperately clung to life on a piece of the wreckage, and they were clearly visible. There was no "fog" obsuring them. And, after 41 minutes, a deliberate decision to kill was made. This was no "double-tap" attack, as has been alleged; rather, it was a second strike after a 41-minmute wait.
It seems inconceivable, but Trump actually chose this week to pardon a convicted drug trafficker who trafficked 400 tons of cocaine to the United States! This shows the hypocrisy of the man and his policies.
As if all this wasn't enough grief for Hegseth, this week the Inspector General's report came out about Signalgate. The conclusion was what we all knew already, that Hegseth had engangered our service men and women by sending out battle plans on an insecure public message platform. But this report puts it back in the public eye, and one wonders how long Hegseth can stay in his job, a job he is totally unqualified for. Already there are cracks in support for Hegseth among Congressional Republicans. But Trump llikes Hegseth, so it would be hard for Trump to fire him. Insiders say that nobody else at the White House or in Copngress likes Hegseth, but only Trump's opinion matters at this point.
Hegseth's reaction to the IG's report was that it was a "total exoneraton". This is complete balderdash. The truth is just the opposite; the report found that he had endangered U.S. service people with hs reckless actions.
To make matters worse for Trump, he had a disastrous Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The rolling cameras caught him repeatedly falling asleep during the meeting. And the presentations of his Cabinet secretaries were as embarrassingly sycophantic as ever, with each heaping praise upon their great leader.
But the most embarrassing part occurred when it came time for Trump to speak. He repeated a litany of lies as is his custom. But his problem here is that the average voter knows first-hand that Trump's statement that he "stopped inflation in its tracks" is dead wrong. And that voter knows that the affordability issue is not a Democratic "con job" as Trump stated. The fact is that grocery prices have gone up since Trump took office in January, Trump's lies to the contrary notwithstanding. Trump has not even lowered the rate of inflation, let alone stopped it.
Why Trump would again claim that he has brought down drug prices "700%" is beyond me. He has been called out in the past for this ridiculous claim (you can't reduce prices by more than 100%!), but he refuses to learn from past mistakes, and insists on making a fool of himself.
Trump ludicrously claimed that his tariffs have brought in trillions of dolars, andd could result in no income tax. The fact is tariff revenue is running at $165 billion this year, up $88 billion from last year. The idea that we could eliminate the income tax is pure fantasy.
Trump repeated his false claim that “Biden gave away $350 billion” in aid to Ukraine, when the actual disbursements have totalled only $94 billion, much of which was spent in the U.S.
This past week Trump's inhumane ICE raids have continued full speed ahead. Almost daily there are revolting accounts of the outrages perpetrated by these ICE thugs. Trump promised to deport "the worst of the worst", but 75,000 of those deported have no crminal record whatsoever.
I could go on and on, but all told this was a horrible week for our president.
1 comment:
Hopefully Trump supporters are realizing some of this! Louise
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